I attended Adblock Plus' 'Camp David' European peace talks with publishers and the ad industry — here's what it was like

Adblock
Plus' "Camp David Europe" event took place over lunch in the wine
cellar rooms of the Stafford Hotel in London.The
Stafford London/Facebook

Adblock Plus, the popular ad blocker that consumers have
downloaded in their tens of millions and that advertising
industry execs love to hate, held the European version of its
"Camp David" peace talks in London on Tuesday.

The "Camp David" event — named after the US President's private
country retreat where peace treaties are often hatched between
world leaders — followed
a November meeting in a Manhattan hotel in November, which
saw the ad blocker bring together tech companies, publishers,
journalists, non-profits, and academics to discuss the formation
of its Acceptable Ads Committee.

Adblock Plus is hoping to form an independent, non-profit
committee for its Acceptable Ads program — the whitelist that
allows "non-intrusive" advertising past its ad blocker. Big
digital advertising companies like Google, Amazon, and Criteo pay
Adblock Plus owner Eyeo big fees to get on the list, but the
service is free for "90%" of sites. This business model,
and the fact that Eyeo is a profit-making company that (at
the moment) acts as the judge of what is deemed an
acceptable ad or not, is what has drawn ire from Adblock Plus'
detractors, which includes many people in the advertising and
publisher community.

On Tuesday, I was invited to attend the London version of Camp
David, held in the depths of The Stafford Hotel's 380-year-old
wine cellars rooms.

The underground passages, with their low ceilings and dusty
vintage bottles of wine positioned behind iron bars, served as an
appropriate secretive setting for the event. It was held under
"Chatham House Rules," meaning I'm allowed to give a general
overview of the topics discussed, but cannot attribute quotes to
any individuals, nor identify who was in the room. I was invited
not necessarily to report on the event, but to listen and share
my views on the Acceptable Ads Committee proposal, in my capacity
as a "content creator" (although it's fair to say I did a lot
more listening than discussing.)

The 25 or so guests from a variety of countries across Europe
included fellow journalists, execs from publishers,
advertising industry trade bodies, execs from ad tech companies,
and privacy and consumer advocates. Adblock Plus had four members
of staff sat around the table, including CEO Till Faida (the
company gave me permission to mention he was there.)

Notable in their absence were the advertising agencies and
advertisers themselves — something that was quickly brought up in
the discussion. If the Acceptable Ads Committee is to be truly
representative, it must include all the members of the online
advertising chain — and the people who create the ads should
probably be involved in these conversations too.

What was discussed: The Adblock Plus business model and the need
for evidence Acceptable Ads actually works

Several participants around the table demanded more transparency
about the business model and which companies take part in the
scheme. In its defense, Adblock Plus
published a page on its website in December detailing how and
why it is financed. But it seems the advertiser and publisher
community still feel uneasy about the model, and are not
immediately ready to invest time and resource into signing
up to a scheme invented by a for-profit company that is in the
business of blocking their revenues.

Where most in the room did agree is that ad blocking is not going
away. No matter which data you look at, ad blocker usage is a
growing global trend.

While some were fearful of the impact of software like Adblock
Plus on their businesses, most people sat at the table simply
required more quantifiable data that moving to Acceptable Ads —
with its fees and subjectivity — can actually benefit an
advertising company or a publisher, rather than simply acting as
a short-term sticking plaster to counter the immediate impact of
ad blocking.

How do ad blocker users react when they notice they are being
served ads? Are they more likely to click on them? Do Acceptable
Ads actually benefit a publisher or advertising company's bottom
line? The answers to those questions don't
seem immediately obvious right now.

Overall, the discussion felt more like a tentative meet and greet
than one that made any considerable progress toward setting up an
independent committee that will be charged with deciding the
criteria behind what makes an acceptable ad.

But the fact that the meeting was rarely combative will likely be
viewed as a productive step for all parties involved — it
looks as though most people in the room would rather tackle the
issue with negotiations about what is right for the user, rather
than with technological warfare.